The following student report was submitted by Ambassador League Agent Traci B. during the 2008-2009 League.
Mission: Reading - Do Hard Things by Alex and Brett Harris
Nineteen year old twin brothers Alex and Brett Harris wrote the book "Do Hard Things." They wrote this book to teens to show how they can rebel against the low expectations of our world. They split this book into different parts, rethinking the teen years and five kinds of hard. Alex and Brett started out with just a small website that they told there friends about and now it is expanded across the world with the website, conferences and now the "Do Hard Things" book. This book is made up of many stories of other teens from around the world that has started changing how the world thinks of teenagers. These teens are rebelling against low expectations.
The book makes you reflect on your own life. It hits right at home. Being later in my teen years right now it makes me wish I could have read this book earlier on. Teens these days have let there teen years become a vacation. We think that there is nothing that we can accomplish during our teen years. "The teen years are not a vacation from responsibility" we need to take our teen years and learn from them so that when we get more into the working world we can accomplish more. As teens we are the next generation. We need to bring the next generation back to what our world built on which is the Bible. We have the power to bring the world back from low expectations. The saying by Henry Ford is so true "Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, your right." If you are always think that you can not do this one certain thing more then likely you will be right but if you put your mind to it that you can do it then you will complete it!
After you rethink your teen years and figure out that you want to rebel against low expectations this book gives you five different kinds of hard to do to get you closer to doing hard things. The first Scary step, raising the bar, the power of collaboration, small hard things, and taking a stand are the 5 different kinds of hard the twins brothers talk about in the second section of this book.
The first scary step is talking about just doing something little that will get you out of your comfort zone. When you get out of your comfort zone you can serve God more fully. You have to learn to lean on him more when you are not in your little box of comfort. Go beyond what is expected or required of you is how the boys explain raising the bar. Going beyond what is expected or required can be something as easy as not just passing a test by the lowest score possible but studying so that you can get an A on that test. The Power of collaborations is doing something that is to hard for one person to accomplish so you have to get more then you to do the job. The bible states in Ecclesiastes 4:9 "Two are better then one... " Small hard things are hard things that will not give you immediate results but sooner or later they will pay off. Taking a stand against certain things that go against the crowd is the final of the five different hard things. Taking a stand against the crowd is such as not going to a movie because of some stuff that the movie is for.
While reading this book it made me think over my life so far and what had I accomplished through my teen years. it makes me regret that I have not done more with my life up to this point. But then again sitting here regretting it is not going to make a difference in doing hard things. Now I have to start applying it to my life now! And maybe along the way I can pick up one person to help me and that person can help the next person get stared on this rebeluation. Just like Alex and Brett started with just a small website.
